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The thing here is that 2,000,000 THB (~60,000 USD) is barely enough money to open a single restaurant! I don’t think you can open a restaurant in Bangkok with 2M. 
 

So there is a chance that your business here may be something online, or something else which clearly doesn’t require even 2M Baht. So you’ll probably be fine just by being a shareholder, and in the meantime staying in Thailand with whatever other visa you are currently holding. In the future if it gets big and you reach the 2M you can then convert the visa and get the work permit.

I just looked the definition of 'First World' in Wikipedia... Talks about GDP, GNP, Human Development Index... what a load of bull.... 

The true way to differentiate between First World and the Rest is... 

The inhabitants of a non first world country are mostly concerned with how to afford the food they are going to eat tonight.... The inhabitants of a first world country are concerned with making an app to register sexual consent. 

Jesus Christ.... unbelievable

15 hours ago, car720 said:

My wife could not believe the world around her when she got access to YouTube.

Then you must have got one out of some rural village. (Dongbei area perhaps?) 

After many times with her in Europe, and now two years living here in Bangkok... Mine is super nationalist and patriotic, far more than I could ever feel towards my home country. And keep in mind, that I was raised in the center of a militaries/politicians family in Europe.... so if anyone should be patriotic and nationalist that should be me, but nothing in comparison to her ????

Tbh sometimes I couldn't care less about my own country. Sometimes I see Brits bashing Spain (my home country) on Gibraltar, and I just pretend I didn't see it. Other times I see someone bashing China, and I jump right into bashing back, even if it's not even my country!!! I guess countries are just like friends, when somebody is good to you and gives you chances, you defend them. Otherwise you couldn't care less, regardless of who is on the right side and who is on the wrong side... 

4 hours ago, Mansell said:

needed a letter from the embassy to open an account.....which of course is total nonsense

Nope, it's not nonsense. 

If you do not have a work permit, Bangkok Bank requires a reference letter in order to open an account. If you do not hand this to them and no work permit either, no office will open an account for you. It is clearly stated in their website. 

Time to get reinforced glass...... 

1 hour ago, car720 said:

Whoa up.  If you have lived there then you will know that this is the way the Chinese see things.  Typical tit for tat.  You take mine hostage (regardless of international law, which, believe it or not they just cannot relate to) and I will take yours hostage. You give me mine and I will give you yours.  This is the way it has been for thousands of years and change doesn't come easily in China.  Good people, bad government.

Yes, I agree. 

But also believing that they took hostage some random innocent Canadian guy who never harmed a fly is equally naive. I know several Canadians in Shenzhen, who mainly work as English teachers, and they have had 0 issues, nada. 

I believe, the authorities knew very well since a long time ago about what those two Canadians were doing, and until then decided to turn a blind eye on them. The moment Canada took Meng hostage however, they suddenly decided to enforce whatever law they were breaking and take those two Canadians hostages. Still, this is not say that they are innocent or that they didn't break any laws. It's just that had Canada not taken Meng hostage, those two would probably still be roaming free... 

Low risk mutual bonds tend to be a nice way for beginners to get started. Then make the jump into dividends paying stocks, and slowly slowly as years pass dedicate a fraction of your capital into higher risk assets. 

Just now, Surelynot said:

Now......of where does that remind me?

Thailand? ????

6 minutes ago, Pedrogaz said:

Countries have their own customs and rules with regard to trials. If you don't agree with China's laws then either don't break them or don't go there

This is a very good point. 
 

Combined with the fact that Chinese authorities tend to turn a blind eye on foreigners breaking certain laws. 
 

But of course when you break a law and they turn a blind eye on it, at some point they may stop turning a blind eye on it and start caring. 
 

Example: When I first got into China many years ago, the traffic police caught me driving without a valid Chinese driving license. The law says that in this case they have to fine you and put you in administrative detention of no more than 15 days. Guess what? The cop let me go with just advice on how to convert my DL into a Chinese one….. Try it again, and depending on the situation they may actually detain you. 
 

Chinese laws are often arbitrarily enforced, but that shouldn’t mean you can break them. And if you break them, be prepared to at some point pay the consequences of it. 

A little off-topic here. But while reading the post it just amused me how cultures affect our thinking. 

For example, back in my home country, we all use liters per 100 km. So if I think about kms per liter that would be like meaningless to me. 

However for OP liters per 100km is actually meaningless. Really curious, isn't it?

Killing them in silence is just too good for them. Others who committed non violent crimes get to spend X years in Bangkok Hilton.... Yet these sick murderers will only suffer the moment previous to the bullet hitting their skull, or the drugs from the injection entering their bloodstream. 

Killing them in the middle of the town, like others suggested, is equally sick and disgusting for today's world. 

The best solution would be forced labor, making something productive for the rest of the society, until the day they die from over working whatever. That way they would really suffer for the crime they committed.

I've always loved Diesel cars. 

I don't dislike the idea of washing machines on tires (EVs) hehe. In fact I quite like it. 

BUT, I will only buy an EV once there is no other options. Once they have banned the Diesel cars, or they are so ridiculously expensive that it is not worth it anymore. In the mean time I will try to leverage all these years until they ban internal combustion cars... 

And I think this is the same opinion as a large part of the population. Since EVs are not any cheaper to purchase or maintain than internal combustion cars in the majority of countries. (China perhaps being one exception, given that in big cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing,... a local license plate is worth onwards of 50K USD, whereas if you purchase an EV you get the license plate for free).

As recommended by fellow member @JAS21 , I took my car to Bloc C 2 in Chatuchak, Bangkok. Had them do a "Leather Care" as well as "Fabric Care" service to the interior of my car. Certain parts of the fabric were quite dirty, as they had not been cleaned in quite a long time. One such example were the door sills, which I guess more than once we had stepped on them during rainy days and they were very dirty. 

It took them around 3 hours (2 hours work + 1 hour working for the car to dry), but eventually everything came out very cleanly. 

They offer many car cleaning services, both on the interior and the exterior of the car. I think their prices are pretty affordable given the professional job they make. 

Another plus, is that they speak English. So communication wise is very straightforward in case you are like me and can't speak Thai ????

On the overall, I can confidently say this is the car wash in Bangkok that I am most pleased with, (keeping in mind that I have visited many overtime...)

(I attach some pictures as reference of the job they did)

For debit cards I would recommend Krungsri Bank. Their VISA Debit Cards are great and offer many options. 

For credit cards, I also would recommend Krungsri, but you aren't looking for a credit card. 

MasterCard I've never really liked what they offer, I think they are behind VISA. UnionPay I also love it, but only in China Mainland. It makes no sense to use UnionPay in Thailand, because you can't get half of the features they offer in China, hence it's pretty much useless in Thailand, just on par with MasterCard IMHO.

Anyhow the risk is very low, and definitely better than getting the virus. 

But there are better options around, if you are going to get the jab, you might as well get the best. I'd give a hell lot of money to be able to get Pfizer here in Thailand.

1 hour ago, cardinalblue said:

Not too bright on how to invest money...

investing in people who don’t have enough money to meet the minimum financially...

did they not ask themselves how and who is that 10% being generated? 
 

you are loaning/covering monies for persons who don’t have it?

I'm sorry to break it for you. But that's the whole point behind loans / credit. And damn right it makes the big ones a hell ton of money. One of the most profitable businesses in the world.

The problem here was not the idea. It was the person running it, they had no intentions of even running any business, they were just running a scam, to try to get as much money as possible. And the boyfriend was Japanese, so even worse. Hope they catch them.

15 hours ago, nobodysfriend said:

Need to realize that all digital coins are just virtual .

You cannot touch 'em , you put in your real existing money to buy some , ( bitcoins ) , you will get a virtual wallet with a password to access it ... A lot of bitcoins have already been lost to their buyers because of lost passwords ( google it ) .

What about error 404 ( page not found ) , or access to your wallet is simply denied because of ' security reasons " ?

I do not trust this hype , I live in the real world , with real money etc .

But I understand that , for some people , it is an easy way to make money for some time ... but better change it to real money before it is too late .

Error 404 (page not found)? If you need to use some third party company's services in order to store your Bitcoin.... Forgive me to say, it might be better for you not to have any at all. Because you might very well end up having them robbed (many scammers and hackers sadly 'live' in the cryptos space), and they make a living out of scamming/hacking noobs trying to 'get rich' with cryptos. 

The safest way to store cryptos long time is... 'offline' in a piece of paper which you might store in the bank in a safe box next to your gold, you get the idea... Literally... 

OP it's easy. Sell some crypto and deposit the money from selling it into your Thai bank, however much that gold is worth...

...Then since you are Thai, and have a Thai ID Card. Go to the bank, explain them in Thai that you need X amount of cash withdrawn from your account, hand them your passbook and ID Card, grab the cash, go to the gold shop and pay it in cash. 

PS: If you use some of those P2P exchange platforms, you might charge extra for selling your crypto, hence you not only don't end up paying 3% more than you obtain in gold, you might very well end up having 3% extra than you obtain in gold..

...the point of the whole post. It was for those racist Thai bashers farang, to prove them that farang also do those things which they bash Thais for all day long, and sometimes even worse ????

2 hours ago, WhatsNext said:

That's what I'm trying to avoid, it's just better to keep her out of the equation all together hence my question about the company structure. Just like you i don't want to be dependent on any Thai for the, possible, resale in the future.

 

For other readers ; the house is for my enjoyment, not an investment, I'm well aware and prepared to lose some value at a sale

In that case, if you wanna leave her out the equation. You have all those multiple options which involve either a company or lease contracts…. 
 

Which I don’t doubt that it would work, so many lawyers recommend it, and so many people have done it, over the years … It’s just that for my own personal taste, I don’t like things being done that way, and I consider it as a source of big headaches in the mid-long term. Hence can’t really offer much advice here. Except that I personally don’t accept that.

And it’s not that I can’t afford to lose 6-7M Baht if things turned out for the worst, what I don’t want is some low-life scumbag ending up legally living in a house which I paid for. I’d rather take the cash myself and set it ablaze than the latter ????

2 hours ago, gunderhill said:

I'm just  appalled that  you don't have a driver????, locals  by me are way  better at driving.

Now that I see your video, it reminded me of something that I’ve had in my mind for a while. Which is: 

90%+ of the accidents I see could have been avoided had either party stepped hard on their brakes, why did the accident still happen anyway? 
 

Both here in Thailand and in China (countries where I’ve driven the most) I’ve had multiple close calls, but in all of them me stepping on the brakes hard has done the trick. In China once I was in a expressway doing 110 kph on the middle lane when suddenly I saw a car completely stopped in the middle of the road. I stepped hard on the brakes and managed to stop inches away from her (I probably had no more than 100m to stop my car as this was right after a curve and it was impossible to see that stopped car earlier). This was the closest I’ve ever had, and I was lucky that while I normally speed and a lot, that day I was only doing 110, had I been doing 120 even I would have most likely crashed…. 
 

Instead many people step on the gas when they see an accident incoming to try to avoid the other driver. But the truth is that very few cars will provide you with an instant acceleration of 1G(9.8m/s2) specially if your speed is already high. However pretty much every car will experience a deceleration of (at least) 1G if you stomp hard enough on the brakes. 
 

14 hours ago, ThailandFoodExpert said:

 

 

yes playboy fits me well ???? And anyway I do not think that there is any AMG with the star on the bonnet ?

But I feel like vomit when you compare benz and bmw...

I would prefer a 20 years old Benz rather than a brand new BMW. They are cars for Russian if you know what I mean...

 

Haha, I think you misunderstood me. I would never buy a BMW let alone an Audi. What I wanted to say is that myself buying a Mercedes with a star in the front grill is almost as impossible as myself buying a BMW. And yep, no AMG with star in the bonnet. Only the Sedan models (C Class - E Class - S Class) with the "Elegance/Classic" trim get the star in the bonnet/

However, I do agree that Mercedes with the star in the front grill suits young people way better, and it is no wonder why most of people prefer the star in the front grill. I guess it's just that I am weird ????

BMW fanboys be like, oh, the E63 S AMG stands no chance against the BMW M8 in a drag race. Well of course, the Merc takes 4 people and the BMW barely 2????. Then when you remind them about how BMW had to quit F1 because of how embarrassed they were that even Renault won more championships than them, the fanboys get so triggered, haha.

Mercedes saves your life. Toyota ????.... Talking my from my own experience with a classmate who crashed while doing around 130 km/h with his Mercedes R320 back in Europe and made it (picture attached). Another friend in Thailand had a very similar accident while doing around 90 km/h with a Toyota Vios, and kicked it ????

Do you know if they work on interiors? 

The outside of my car looks pretty good, as just about once every month I take it to the car was at Central Rama 9 and they do quite a nice of a work in the exterior. However the exterior, there is something bothering me a lot. 

Which is the Car Door Sill, it is made of regular fabric and I guess over the years we've stepped on it more than once during rainy days. To the point that while it used to be a dark grey, now specially at the center is almost black!!! I once tried to fix it myself with soapy water and a sponge, but I only made it worse moving the sh**t which was previously concentrated in the center moving it all along the sill. 

Do you know whether the chaps at Bloc C can help with this one?